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Bowren D'doren
Bowren D'doren was the greatest military leader in the recorded histroy of the hidiir, the desert nomads of the Merrovian Empire. Born the son and grandson of chieftains, it was perhaps unsurprising that D'doren rose to eminence within the hidiir community. Ancestry D'doren was born to parents of distinguished lineage - his mother was the daughter of the chieftain of the Orud tribe, while his father was the son of the chieftain of the Pomoroaran tribe. The marriage was part of a peace agreement between these two tribes, made in the face of increasing Merrovian incursions into traditionally hidiir territory. Both the Orud and Pomoroaran tribes were large and widely-dispersed, and included a number of sub-tribes or allied factions, and between them represented between two-thirds and three-quarters of the hidiir population. As the first-born son of the marriage, D'doren was raised with the expectation that he would one day accept the chieftainship of both tribes and weld the hidiir into one great nation. Early life D'doren was born in Ovonel, the great holy city of the hidiir and the traditional home of their kings and great chiefs. While a nomadic people, the hidiir have always maintained a number of holy cities, and none is more sacred or more heavily-defended than Ovonel. He was probably born in 2420, although the inaccuracy of hidiir timekeeping makes this hard to verify. His birth was apparently heralded by great sandstorms, the sun blazing with blue fire and the appearance in the night sky of a burning figure a thousand miles long. No reports of such phenomena exist in other records of the time. Records are lacking regarding his early life, although legends and hagiography abound. Whilst these are frequently contradictory or so outlandish as to be dismissed by scholars, there is little doubt that from an early age he showed both mental and phyiscal prowess, and indeed one of the most persistent myths tells how at the age of eight he bested all of his tutors, both military and scholarly, and was proclaimed that day as the champion of his people. The first external report of the young prince comes from the accounts of the historian and explorer Grenley the Fair, who recorded in his Historica Merrovia that: "Now came I unto Ovonel, city of the savages, with great noise of trumpets and showing of weapons, and they brought me unto the hall of their king. And there I was brought before the king and queen, and they were mighty of stature and gifted of mind, and standing before them was their son, and he was mightier and more gifted than them, and they raised him up high, and he passed judgment." Chieftainship By 2438, D'doren had established himself in the power structure of the hidiir court. Rejecting the counsel of his parents' advisers, he deposed them both and rallied the people to his banner. Inspired by the legends and feats of their boy-king, the people flocked to Onovel, swearing their alleigance and declaring him king. His parents bowed to the inevitable and passed into the inner chambers of the holy city, reduced to just two more advisers to the new king and warchief. Taking upon himself the ancient title of "Chieftain of the Desert", D'doren organised his fanatical populace into two forces - the Holy Warriors, who would defend the holy cities, and the Desert Warriors, who would march with him to defeat the Merrovians in battle. The Holy Warriors were extremely zealous in their twin roles as defenders and enforcers of the law, and soon adopted a twin purpose as both a police force and home guard, defending the holy cities (the only fixed abodes of the nomadic hidiir) from Merrovian skirmishers. The Desert Warriors, on the other hand, were bale to focus entirely on the development of military tactics and strategy. Lacking the quality horses of the Merrovians, the hidiir disdained traditional cavalry, instead developing dragoons - camel-riding infantry that used their mounts for mobility rather than combat. Their infantry tactics were similarly advanced, and through guile and crushing local superiority, D'doren and his Desert Warriors were able to defeat the Merrovian legions at a number of battles. As a result of these victories, D'doren and his adherents were able to push as far east as Stone Mountain, where they established a large fortified position. Defeat and exile The Stone Mountain fortifications, however, proved insufficient. In 2453, the 99th Legion was deployed against the hidiir encampment, under orders to rout the Desert Warriors and destroy their encampment. Initial skirmishes showed that the legions' usual siege tactics would be insufficient, as D'doren had taken steps to mitigate against the action of catapults and trebuchets. Further, the abundant resources of Stone Mountain and the artesian wells under the main encampment ruled out any possibility of reducing the fortification by siege. Faced with the seeming invulnerability of Stone Mountain, the general in command of the 99th Legion sent a small detatchment, led by a junior officer by the name of Tullius, to climb the far side of the mountain in darkness, and attempt to identify any weak points from that vantage point during the following day. In the event, Tullius and his detatchment were able to discern that the western approach to the fortress was insufficiently guarded, and, fearing that the hidiir would realise their vulnerabilty and take action to resolve it, signalled their general by heliograph and entered the fortress by stealth. At the moment the 99th drew up for assault, Tullius and his force burst out of a storehouse near the western gate, slew the guards and opened the gates, allowing the 99th to assault successfully into the fortress. D'doren and his personal guard were outside the fortress at this time, surveying the southern approaches for the building of guard towers, but when he saw the 99th's vanguard pass through the gates without resistance, he attempted to lead his miniscule force in a counterattack. According to the account of his brother, the chief of his guard struck D'doren with his fist, stunning him and allowing his personal guard to carry him to safety, rather than throwing his life away in a futile act of resistance. Regardless of his conciousness at the time, the fall of Stone Mountain was regarded by the hidiir as a sign that D'doren was not the great leader they had awaited, and in order to avoid assassins sent by his relatives, he fled into exile in the northern deserts, by the borders of Adele. Amid the long-abandoned ruins of forgotten civilizations, D'doren slowly rebuilt his forces. The hidiir leadership attempted rapprochement with the Merrovians, but in 2470 the Legions descended upon the still-recalcitrant hidiir tribesmen of the eastern deserts and slaughtered three tribes. Outraged, hidiir warriors flocked to their exiled king's banners. Maching in triumph back to Ovonel, D'doren threw out the collaborators and pro-Imperial members of the hidiir court and established himself again as Chieftain of the Desert. Rebirth of hidiir nation Having learned from his mistakes in ignoring the political side of leadership, D'doren did not permit himself to repeat them. Tribal chiefs were brought before him and caused to swear fealty in the sight of all their peers, and D'doren used the opportunity to establish a kind of aristocracy, granting the various chiefs titles and honours. He also followed the Adelean example and created "ministries", although in practice these were primarily sinecures used to reward or ensure loyalty. For the first time, the hidiir population was taxed to raise money for war. The horrors of the 2470 massacres were still fresh in the minds of the people, and even the most fiercely independent tribes paid willingly into D'doren's war chest. Following the intricately-laid plans he'd crafted during his exile, the money flowed north through trusted agents to purchase modern weapons, equipment and support from Tomsim, including the hire of several powerful battlemages to provide the magical power the hidiir lacked. After a year of preparations, D'doren led his army forward to conquer. His target - at least, his first target - was the great central stronghold and supply depot of Fort Moonhollow. Sacking of Fort Moonhollow Main article: see Battle of Fort Moonhollow The strategy which led to the destruction of Fort Moonhollow had been ten years in the building and over a year in the implementation. With intelligence provided by both Tomsimite and Ravenite spymasters, D'doren was able to take advantage of weaknesses in the Merrovian army's logistics chain. Fort Moonhollow was both the main garrison and primary supply depot for the Merrovian Legions central forces, but the depot itself contained at most a year's supplies. Imperial commanders feared that a larger reserve might provide regional governors with the means to contemplate revolution, and so each spring a huge supply convoy, heavily guarded, would refill the granaries and storehouses of the fortress. Deploying his forces with malice and cunning in the autumn of 2473, D'doren organised dozens of small raiding parties, each detailed to raid specific villages and outposts of the Empire. Each raiding party was large enough to take care of itself against the hazards of the wilderness, but too small to justify the deployment of Legion forces to their repression. Taken in total, however, the raiders were a significant force, and the reserves of Fort Moonhollow were quickly expended, both supporting military operations as well as providing humanitarian support to those hurt by the raids. 2474 brought a cold winter and mild summer to the deserts of Merrow, and D'doren used the advantages this gave him ruthlessly. Commanding a force of over one hundred thousand warriors, D'doren managed to cut the fortress' supply line by occupying the town of Pedelli. Rather than confront his heavily-fortified position, the supply column entrenched itself in the provinical capital, waiting for Fort Moonhollow's own forces to clear the road. D'doren had prepared for this, and was able to forge messages to the convoy commander, claiming that D'doren's forces had been routed. When the convoy passed through Pedelli, the hidiir massacred them, slaughtering the escort and looting the supplies before retreating back into the desert. Furious, the Empire sent another, larger convoy, this one escorted by two full Legions. But it was too late. Faced with the destruction of their supply convoy, and crippled after a year of holding off the hidiir's guerilla raids, the garrison surrendered. Most were released in Pedelli when the hidiir abandoned the town. The fortress itself was looted of all its remaining supplies, including the extensive arsenal, and the hidiir demolished the curtain wall and most of the structures within the fortress, including the great keep of Moonhollow which had stood for five hundred years. Their victory total and complete, the hidiir fled back into the desert, far beyond the Empire's capacity to respond. When the second supply convoy arrived, there was nothing to find but dust and ashes. Desert insurgency Humiliated by the loss of Fort Moonhollow, the newly-crowned Emperor Tullius, who had participated in the defeat of D'doren at Stone Mountain decades before, declared war on the hidiir nation. Tribes close the Empire's centre of power in the eastern desert were interned or exterminated, and survivors fled to the west and joined D'doren's swelling armies. Raising additional legions and pushing forward a massive fortification program, Tullius pressed and harried the hidiir, driving them before him. Faced with a resurgent Imperial force, D'doren returned to the tactics that had worked so well in reducing Fort Moonhollow - guerilla warfare, hit-and-run strikes, and impeccably-timed ambushes, aimed at attacking both the men and the morale of the Imperial Legions. While effective in a tactical sense, the strategic initiative remained with Tullius, who refused to be drawn into counter-guerilla operations against hidiir civilians, chosing instead to focus on finding and destroying their military camps. Despite the expertise of Tullius and the terrible efficiency of his army, it took nearly twenty years for the hidiir insurgency to be put down. In 2490, the Legions were able to take the holy city of Matherion, following a lengthy siege. Another siege at Cimmura was only successful after a pestilence broke out in the city in 2491, crippling the defence. The loss of these holy cities provoked another evolution in hidiir society, with a number of tribes repudiating D'doren and withdrawing their forces. Crippled by these losses, D'doren retreated, not to Ovonel as Tullius expected, but to the "lost" Fortress of the Desert's Heart. This towering sandstone structure lacked the religious significance of D'doren's previous battlefields, but was considered impregnable by his councillors. Death In 2497, Emperor-General Tullius, leading the 4th, 7th, 15th, 21st, 66th and 102nd Legions, along with the now-legendary 99th Legion, marched on the Fortress of the Desert's Heart. The Emperor-General was now an old man, as was D'doren, but he was determined to break the hidiir's military threat to his people. D'doren was equally determined to establish once and for all the independence of his people. The Fortress of the Desert's Heart was breached by the Emperor-General's cunning and wise deployment of siege engines and destructive magics, and he successfully used two huge diversions to draw away the defenders, allowing the 99th and 102nd Legions to seize the main gates and begin the final assault. Desperate to prevent the Legion from overcoming the defences, D'doren and his personal guard engaged the Imperial forces at the gate. Defeated there and driven back into the fortress, Tullius and his personal guard pursued the hidiir leader, until at last the two old enemies faced each other on the highest courtyard of the fortress. There, as their guards fought, the two leaders duelled to the death. When Imperial forces routed the hidiir, they found the two men laying on the stones, dead from their wounds. Legacy The hidiir never truly recovered from the loss of their leader, and retreated into a truly nomadic existence, abandoning their holy cities and the old capital of Ovonel. However, D'doren's name is still used as a description of their "golden age" Category:People